£ 
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Some Lincoln Correspondence 
with Southern Leaders before 
the Outbreak of the Civil War 



FROM THE COLLECTION OP 

JUDD STEWART 

1909 




Class 
Book. 



M3 



__ 



Gopyrightlsl?_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



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Some Lincoln Correspondence 
with Southern Leaders before 
the Outbreak of the Civil War 



FROM THE COLLECTION OF 

JUDD STEWART 
1909 



Uneolniaiia 



COPYRIGHT 1909 

; Y JUDD STEWART 

NEW YORK. 



©CI.A25617? 







FOREWORD 

Recently I acquired the correspondence between President 
Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Alexander H. Stephens and Senator 
J. J. Crittenden given herein. It seems to me proper to make a 
permanent record of these documents because they add to the 
history of the time and much to the record of Lincoln's efforts 
to prevent the War of the Rebellion. 

By publishing the correspondence it is hoped that perhaps the 
originals of the letters, which are certified as being correct by Mr. 
Stephens, may be brought to light. Senator Crittenden's 
letter to Mr. Stephens, the original of which is in my collection, 
suggests that he might also have asked Mr. Lincoln's opinion on 
the same question and the internal evidence of the correspond- 
ence, it seems to me, indicates that these letters were really 
written by these men. I have indicated in notes which of the 
letters are original, and which are copies, certified to by Mr. 
Stephens. 

The letter from Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Stephens, January 19th, 
i860, and Mr. Stephens' reply January 25th, present, perhaps 
as no two other letters could do, the views of the South and the 
North prior to the breaking out of the Rebellion. 

The letter of Mr. Lincoln to Senator Crittenden Dec. 22nd, 
1859 is somewhat curt in its tone, but may be explained by the 
fact that Senator Crittenden went out of his way to help Douglas 
in 1858, and Lincoln was always a little sore over Crittenden 
meddling in the matter because he thought Crittenden, as well as 
Greely and others should, on principle, have sided with him. 

Mr. Lincoln's letter of January 19th, i860 to Mr. Stephens 
(duplicated for Senator Crittenden) was dictated, and, in addition, 
was an effort to answer both Mr. Stephens and Senator Critten- 
den with one letter; both of these circumstances would quite 
naturally tend to detract from Mr. Lincoln's usual clarity of 
expression, although the substance of the letter is what might be 
expected from him. 

Judd Stewart. 

Plainfield, Nov. 30th, 1009. 



December 22, 1859. 
Address, Springfield, Illinois. 

Hon. J. J. Crittenden, U. S. Senate 

My Dear Sir : I should not care to be a candidate of a party 
having as its only platform "The Constitution, the Union and 
the enforcement of the laws." "The Constitution," as we 
understand it, has been the shibboleth of every party or mal- 
content from the Hartford Convention that wanted to secede 
from slave territory and the "Blue Light" burners who were in 
British sympathy in 181 2, to John C. Calhoun and South Carolina 
Nullification. The Union, we intend to keep, and loyal states 
will not let disloyal ones break it. Its constitution and laws 
made in persuance thereof must and shall remain, "the supreme 
law of the land." The enforcement of what laws? If they are 
those which give the use of jails & domestic police for masters 
seeking "fugitives from labor" that means war in the North. 
No law is stronger than is the public sentiment where it is to be 
enforced. Free speech and discussion and immunity from whip 
& tar and feathers, seem implied by the guarantee to each state 
of "a republican form of government." Try Henry Clay's 
"gradual emancipation" scheme now in Kentucky, or to circulate 
W. L. Garrison's Liberator where most men are salivated by the 
excessive use of the Charleston Mercury. Father told a story 
of a man in your parts required to give a warrantee bill of sale 
with a horse. He wrote, "I warrant him sound in skin and 
skeleton and without faults or faculties." That is more than I 
can say of an unmeaning platform. Compromises of principles 
break of their own weight. 

Yours very respectfully 

A. Lincoln. 



(The above is from a copy made by the same person who copied the 
letters certified as correct by Mr. Stephens as noted herein.) 



Washington, Jany 13th, i860. 

My Dear Sir 

I send you by this mail a pamphlet of my friend, S. S. Nicholas 
of Louisville, Kenty, proposing & recommending a new plan of 
electing or selecting presidents of the United States— He wants 
your opinion upon it — Please write to him what you think of it, 
when you have time to read it. He is one of our most able & 
respected citizens of Kentucky. He will be pleased to hear from 
you. Mr. Wm. C. Rives has given him an opinion & he desires 

yours. 

The House is still without a Speaker, & confusion still reigns. 

This is the result of the conflict that has been so long waged 
between the Democratic & Republican parties. It has brought 
the country to the verge of ruin. To displace both these parties 
from power seems to be the only remedy— the only safety for the 
country. You will have seen that some of us here are making 
an appeal to the people to rise in the form of a national & constitu- 
tional party and apply that remedy. What think you of it? 
If such men as you would but espouse & lead in the movement, 
it could not but succeed— the feelings of the whole country favours 
it & the whole country would be benefited by it. Indeed, we may 
well (say) that the country could not be injured by any change. 

You may be assured of this, that the movement is entirely 
unselfish, & that the only motives to it are the good of the 
country, & to rescue it from the plague of party that is now upon it. 

We are labouring for the advancement of no individual. We 
spurn such an imputation. We have no individual in view 
even, for the Presidency. Our only aim is our Country's good. 

The only question with you will be whether the means by which 
we seek that end are the appropriate & best means, namely, the 
formation of such a party as is proposed. 1 do not seek to draw 
you from the sequestration in which you have chosen to place 
yourself, but I have been so long accustomed to regard your 
opinions with respect & confidence, that I should like, for own 
satisfaction, if for no other purpose, to have your views upon this 
occasion, if your cases & your clients have left you time to think 
of the subject. I am, 

Your Friend &c 
Hon. Alex'r II. Stephens. J. .!• CwTTBNDEM 

(The above is from the original autograph letter now in my possession.) 



Springfield, Illinois, 19 January, i860. 

Duplicated for Senator J no. J . Crittenden 

Honorable A. H. Stephens 

Dear Sir: Your letter and one from Hon. J. J. Crittenden, 
reached me at the same time. He wants a new party on the 
platform of "The Union, the constitution and the enforcement 
of the Laws" — not construed. You from your retirement at 
Liberty Hall complain of the bad faith of many in the free states 
who refuse to return fugitives from labor, as agreed in the com- 
promise of 1850, 1854: but I infer that you agree with Judge 
Douglas that the territories are to be left to "form and regulate 
their own domestic institutions subject only to the Constitution 
of the United States." I remember the letter of the Whigs in 
Congress in 1852 which defeated Gen'l Winfield Scott on the 
ground that he did not present your view of States' rights. Also 
that your letter destroyed the Whig party and it is said that you 
and Toombs voted for Webster after he was dead. You are still 
"harping" on "my daughter" and you supported Zach Taylor as 
a sound Kentuckian. If I understand you, here are two con- 
structions : Crittenden being willing for the Henry Clay gradual 
emancipation, I think. The rights of local self-government as 
defined by Webster, also including state determination of 
citizenship, are clearly in the Constitution. When we were both 
Members of the Young-Indian Club in Washington you then 
argued for paramount state Sovereignty going very nearly to the 
extreme of state nullification of Federal laws with John C. 
Calhoun : and of secession at will with Robert Toombs. The 
Colonies were subject up to July 4, 1776, and had no recognized 
independence until they had won it in 1783: but the only time 
they ever had the shadow of separate sovereignty was in the two 
years before they were compelled to the articles of Confederation 
July 9, 1778. They fought England for seven years for the 
right to club together but when were they independent of each 
other? ' Let me say right here that only unanimous consent of 
all of the states can dissolve this Union. We will not secede and 
you shall not. •• Let me show you what I think of the reserved 
rights of the states as declared in the articles of Confederation 
and in the Constitution and so called Jeffersonian amendments; 
suppose that I sold a farm here in Illinois with all and singular 



the rights, members and appurtenances to the same in any wise 
belonging or appertaining, signed, sealed and delivered: I have 
now sold my land. Will it at all change the contract if I go to 
the clerk's office and add a post script to the record; that all 
rights not therein conveyed I reserve to myself and my children ? 
The colonies, by the Declaration of July 4, 1776, did not get 
nationality, for they were leagued to fight for it. By the articles 
of Confederation of July 9, 1778 under stress and peril of failure 
without union; a government was created to which the 
states ceded certain powers of nationality, especially in the com- 
mand of the army and navy, as yet supported by the states. 
Geo. Washington was commander in Chief and congress was 
advisory agent of the states, commending but not enacting laws 
for the thirteen, until empowered This proved insufficient 
and the peril of failure was great as ever, at home and abroad. 
Alexander Hamilton and others of New York were first to urge 
that a government with no revenues, except state grants, could 
have no credit at home or abroad. Three years later Virginia 
led the states in urging concessions of power, and then by twelve 
states — Rhode Island objecting — was framed our original Con- 
stitution of 1787 fully three and a half years after the peace that 
sealed our United national Independence. The post-script 
erroneously all attributed to Thomas Jefferson; came in three 
installments. The first ten (10) proposed in the first session of 
the Congress of the United States 25th September 1789 were 
ratified by the constitutional number of states 15 December 1791, 
New Jersey 20 November 1789 and Virginia 15 December 1791, 
eleven states only; Georgia and Connecticut dissenting. The 
eleventh amendment proposed 5 March 1794; Third Congress 
was then declared duly adopted by a President's message of, 
8 January, 1798; Eleven states consenting & finally all con- 
senting. The twelvth amendment was proposed in congress 12 
December 1803 and declared ratified through the secretary of 
State 25 September 1804 by the constitutional quorum of states. 
The first ten articles are the Bill of Rights and each set of amend- 
ments had a preface. The eleventh limited the Federal Judiciary 
The twelfth regulated general elections for President and Vice- 
President of the United States. Do any or all of these retract 
the fee-simple grant of great and permanent powers to the 
Federal Government? There are three great Departments 



I the President commanding the Army and Navy and with a 
veto upon a plurality of Congress. II the Congress coining all 
moneys; collecting all imposts on imports, regulating all inter- 
state as all external commerce; making all subordinate Federal 
Judiciary as appointed of the President with power to have a 
ten mile square seat and to take grants or to buy for Forts, 
Dock yards and Arsenals; having post offices and post roads 
under laws executed by the President, and to frame supreme 
consitutional lows and set up courts and Judges. Ill The supreme 
court set as arbiter and expounder of the constitution and of all 
differences of states and with states or of them with the Federa- 
tion; no loop hole left for nullification, and none for secession, — 
because the right of peaceable assembly and of petition and by 
article Fifth of the Constitution, the right of amendment, is the 
Constitutional substitute for revolution. Here is our Magna 
Carta not wrested by Barons from King John, but the free gift of 
states to the nation they create and in the very amendments 
harped upon by states rights men are proposed by the Federal 
congress and approved by Presidents, to make the liberties of 
the Republic of the West forever sure. All of the States' Rights 
which they wished to retain are now and forever retained in the 
Union, including slavery; and so I have sworn loyalty to this 
constitutional union, and for it let me live or let me die. But 
you say that slavery is the corner stone of the south and if 
separated, would be that of a new Republic; God forbid. When 
a boy I went to New Orleans on a flat boat and there I saw slavery 
and slave markets as I have never seen them in Kentucky, and I 
heard worse of the Red River plantations. I hoped and prayed 
that the gradual emancipation plan of Henry Clay or the Liberian 
colonization of John Q. Adams might lead to its extinction in the 
United States. Geo. Washington, the Massachusetts Adams, 
presidents James Madison and Monroe, Benj. Franklin; opposed 
its extension into the territories before I did. The ordinance of 
1784, 1787 for the North West territory ceded by Virginia, was 
written by Thomas Jefferson and signed only by slave-holders 
and that prohibited forever slavery, or involuntary servitude not 
imposed for crime. Your grandfather, Captain Stephens, suf- 
fered at Valley Forge and bled at Brandywine for the principles 
of the men "of 1 776-1783. Your Uncle, Justice Grier of the 
Supreme Bench has recently expounded the Supreme Law as I 

8 



honestly accept it. Senator Crittenden complains that by the 
device of party conventions and nominations of candidates for 
Presidents and Vice-Presidents the Federal plan of separate and 
unbiased Electoral Colleges is taken away and the popular 
feature of elections is restored to the people. I reckon they 
wanted it so. What are you agoing to do about it? To abolish 
conventions you must abolish candidates. In your Oxford Col- 
lege oration, you say "I love the Union and revere its memories; 
I rejoice in all its achievements in arts in letters and in arms." 
If it is a good thing, why not just keep it and say no more about 

it? 

I am not in favor of a party of Union constitution and law to 
suit Mr. Bell or Mr. Everett and be construed variously in as 
many sections as there are states. 

This is the longest letter I ever dictated or wrote. 
But this is to, only you alone, not to the public. 

Yours truly 

A. Lincoln. 

(The above is from a copy certified as correct by Mr. Stephens.) 



STATE OF GEORGIA 
Executive Department 

Atlanta, Ga., 1882. 

Crawfordsville, Ga., January 25th, i860. 

Hon. Abraham Lincoln, 

Springfield, Illinois. 

My Dear Sir: 

Yours of the 19. is here. I have little faith in any new or old 
party being able to save us from the madness, as much of the 
south as the north. A Constitutional Union party pledged to 
the enforcement of all laws, and in its platform fully recognizing 
the paramount State sovereignty, seems hopeful to some men — 
less so to me than when I wrote, as you will see by my reply to 
Senator Crittenden. As a railway man might say — "I foresaw 
a smash up on our road, and got off at the first station." My 
retirement from congress means — I trust — rest and an end of 
public life. There are two points in your letter. First, il- 
lustrating our constitution and amendments by a fee-simple deed 
with a post-script. This is clever. Just such deeds are known 
to Georgia law, the tail inserted before signing. To avoid the 
equity of redemption of mortgage, the Insurance loan companies, 
mostly from the North West, take a fee-simple deed, conditional 
to be void if the loan and interest are paid in three years. What 
remains of the title? Everything, — if the condition is kept. 
Let me give you a better illustration. Pensioners of the United 
States, receive for service or wound, each a part of what right- 
fully and originally is of the government, i. e. money of the public 
revenue, when granted it is truly inalienable. The pensioner 
cannot sell or pawn the certificate, not even for the full value of it 
for an average life-time and such premium as the certainty of 
payment commands with public bonds. Not voidable, but void 
is such a sale, the government admitting no consideration as 
equal to its faith with the pensioner. This government right is 
devisible, — inheritable — inalienable. Take a scripture illustra- 
tion. The covenant of the Holy Family ran by inheritance 
through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In the third step it fell to 
the younger brother; in the fourth, it divided to twelve sons, 



10 



Dinah not inheriting. Each son had an eqnal ««e tribal 
risht as entire as that Abraham and Isaac possessed. Th.s was 
sted when the David line of the royal tribe of Jndah represented 
by Rehoboam, undertook to coerce the seceded ten tribes under 
Jeroboam (r, Kings XI th 3.. 3O and although possess ed of 
Kingly divine right, he was forbidden of the Lori (I_Kmg 
XII 21 ) The thirteen colonies revolting from the British 
c X " wn , were successful; and whether yon date Independence 
from July 4, m6,or in 1783, when seven years later it was 
recognized, the original sovereignty of Great Britain became all 
vested in the colonies, and if Dinah had been wed the partition o 
the sovereignty into thirteen full nations or nbes , «*M l£. 
narallel Indeed it was so since Joseph parted to Ephram 
paranei. Hebrew could not 

Manasseh the younger first. Again, tne n 
alienate heritage or liberty; all came back in the Jubilee, only 
rangers could (Leviticus XXV; .0 to ,,). State sovereignty 
Uke 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," is mahenab e- 
Prfcelesslabove all consideration, expediency or necessity-. 
irates could not give away-could not "£.~ ? £ 
Divine Governor-that heritage and that blrth-nght of the 
mother birth-pangs of .776-783. Born ,n a bed of fire of the 
Revolution-States sold not their rights-as did Esau for a mes 
of pottage Sovereignty here in our states ,s no longer in the 
olnor is it in the agent appointee but it is in the s ate. 
The southern fire-eaters who clamor for extension o ! Slavery 
into the territories, by the popular local vote or by Congress 
have no sense. We will settle no more slave territory un ess we 
reopen the African slave trade to get more negroe.. G ™ tin f 
Congress power to put it in, also concedes power to keep * 
When once these malcontents have conceded to the Federal 
Lent the right to intermeddle with the paramount local 
Sgnty; the same in the territory preparing for statehood as 
the states; all barriers will break and centralism w.,1 obhterate 
state lines. Review this matter again. Slavery and sec- 
t onahsm will not always force issues, and Statehood ,s as precious 
,0 the North West as it is to the South East. \ our second point 
s the word ■Terpetual" and in the last two .words *££% 
•'Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union -the sense o 
the ritle is submerged and also of all of the articles, except 



Thirteen. 

1 1 



Articles of Confederation: Each of them is equally vital. 
No delegate would have signed one without them all. "Perpetual 
Union" — "This union shall be perpetual" on these terms only. 
Did you ever notice that this language is not repeated in the 
"More perfect" Constitution? You know as well as I do that 
Virginia and other states as New York and Rhode Island in all of 
the early proposals to extend the power of Congress over im- 
port duties for the sake of public credit based on revenue; asked 
that the experiment be limited to a term of years, ten, fifteen or 
thirty. Only the general trust in each other and in the limita- 
tions exacted : made it a general and not a limited time partner- 
ship. Granting more power against such protests as that of 
Rhode Island that it might be used against the states. The 
language of the Articles of 1778 as to perpetuity was intentionally 
omitted. Our ancestors did not foresee that slavery, then 
general would sectionalize; and that in doing business as a firm 
for one hundred years, that valuable assets viz : our vast terri- 
torial farms — would be struggled for by greedy banks of partners 
— and, as Henry Clay foresaw in our expansion by conquest from 
Mexico, would threaten or produce inter-state and sectional war. 
I pray that there may be no disunion. The one weakness of the 
south is the concretion of wealth in the hands of a few. A recent 
book "Cotton is King" — shows that the King is administered by 
an aristocracy of three hundred thousand (300,000) out of four 
millions of whites (4.000,000). If the entire white population 
seek separate Independence; the northern states will no more 
repress it than did George III with the Colonies. There will be 
no "peacable secession;" the firm has assets now contended for — 
and the arbiter is the sword. No constitutional party will avail 
when sections differ as you and I do as to what it means. No 
law will be enforced when men like William H. Seward say there 
is a "Higher Law" than is the Federal Supreme law, and when 
men like Salmon P. Chase say in the Senate, they and their states 
will not observe the great Compromises of 1 850-1 854-6. Our 
Union is a compact between sovereigns, and if one breaks a treaty 
the others are not bound. Call it a partnership — unlimited in 
times as they usually are — but strictly limited in action. Few 
partnerships anticipate their dissolution or fix the time. One 
partner extravagant and greedy releases the rest, for no one may 
hold others to take advantage of his own wrong. Death dis- 



solves but it is rarely provided for. When we dissolve, the less 
will leave the greater, and if the less be then the richer, as the 
south now is, the greater will not be amiable. That means war; 
not doubtful if Independence, not selfish greed, shall actuate a 
tier of states. Once made, the breach will never heal. Horace 
Greeley says two sections may be pinned together by bayonets, 
but not the hearts. General Scott in his words, "Wayward 
sisters depart in peace" refers to the In Pace of the convent nun 
walled up alive. That we will see. Finally, I do not think the 
Jeffersonian amendments are unmeaning. They express what 
the convention implied. Esto Perpetua has been inscribed on 
pyramids and empire gates and cut deeply into granite and 
marble tombs. The works of man are not eternal. We are far 
from the hoary years of Thebes and Rome and England— Wait ! 
Our temple is very new, but it shakes. Oysters and little brooks, 
coilia insects and earth worms have terms outlasting empires, 
Wait! We are very new. Rereading your valuable letter, I 
note this question, "What of state rights is there remaining after 
all of the enumerated concessions to the Federal government?" 
I answer Sovereignty that is everything. I now have in my hands 
as Attorney and Trustee, the estate of three girls who have 
sixty thousand dollars each. This is my admission that I do 
not own the estate. The three departments of the General 
Government do not constitute the union— remove the states and 
the agent is nothing. 

Let me suppose that you return to public life and one day 
you pen this entry * * * "On the fourth day of March 1861 
I. A. L. found myself to be the secretary of a convention of all the 
states, met by Delegates in Phila. I The members of the con- 
stitutional convention sat and looked at each other. II They all 
agreed to disagree. Ill They then all went home. Would you 
then write "Finding myself in the historic hall like a bean in an 
empty bag, I, therefore, am The Union)" Let me suppose that 
to pass the time, you spread the blue Union-Jack on a table and 
with chalk, mark out among the stars, the line of dissolving power. 
You admit that all of say thirty three states could dissolve the 
Union. Mark out one as dissenting— Maine or South Carolina, 
and you will admit that thirty-two states could still dissolve the 
Union. The matter is practical. The constitution of 17 Septem- 
ber 1787 began to take shape in the Delaware convention 7 

13 



Dec. 1787, but up to 21 November 1789 North Carolina and 
Rhode Island had not ratified and were of the 1778 Confedera- 
tion. Twelve states in convention made the constitution, 
omitting to record as perpetual the greater powers they loaned — 
and up to May 29, 1790, Rhode Island was left alone in the Con- 
federation of July 9, 1778. Then R. I. was taxed in. You can 
easily divide thirty-three states into three groups of eleven each ; 
Eastern, Western, Southern, Remove slavery and the South and 
West naturally unite for good commercial reasons. Could not 
twenty-two states then dissolve the Union? Surely. If 22: 
could not seventeen (17) a majority of one? So the old Demo- 
cratic party is practically divided now. If 17, could not eleven 
(11)? Interest so divides us now. Judge Benning in a speech I 
send you, argues that eleven states make the tobacco, cotton, rice, 
sugar and corn, the five money producing staples; against the 
potatoes, hay and wheat of the more populous states. Only by 
their commerce that of lakes, rivers and railways being largely in 
excess of the oceanic, do the twenty-two states compare with the 
fruitful eleven. I may say that fourteen states are yet interested 
in the productiveness of slave labor. Surely the old thirteen 
states could have dissolved the union which they made. The 
repeated recitation of the term perpetual purposely left out of the 
constitution is like the "till death do you part" of marriage. 
Christ and Paul admit it may be broken, although the Vinculo 
Matrimoni never so recites. Any other fourteen states emerged 
from territorial chrysalis become vested with all of the attributes 
of statehood, sovereignty included. If fourteen could ever 
dissolve the union — can they not now — cannot one? Where do 
you draw the line of power? Eleven less populous states, having 
a million more of whites and four millions more of total popula- 
tion than had the old thirteen, if united as then for a new Inde- 
pendence, would surely attain it. Great Britain had as many 
available millions as you have and failed. You in your welcome 
to Louis Kossuth, expressed high regard for any people struggling 
for liberty, yet the slaves of the south are in as good condition as 
were Hungarian serfs. A century of storm and shine has not yet 
merged our thirteen stripes and thirty three bright stars into one 
smear of indistinguishable Union. God keeps us yet distinct? 
I am for the Union as our fathers made it. Georgia commands 



14 



me _ as said Ruth to Naomi, "The Lord do so to me and more 
also if aught save death separate me and my state." 

Yours truly, 

Alexander H. Stephens. 



(The foregoing copy of letter to Mr. Lincoln by Mr. Stephens is signed 
by Mr. Stephens, it and Mr. Lincoln's letter of Jany. 19th, i860, to Mr. 
Stephens (duplicated for Senator Crittenden) are certified to by Mr. 
Stephens as being correct copies as follows) 



*5 



STATE OF GEORGIA 
Executive Department 

Atlanta, Ga., January 19th, 1883. 

Colo. Henry Whitney Cleveland at your request I certify that 
the 7 sheets of legal cap paper dated Springfield, Illinois 19, 
January i860, twenty three years ago, are the (dictated) letter of 
Abraham Lincoln to me on the political issues before the secession 
of the states and that the 16 sheets of Executive paper constitute 
my reply from Crawfordville, Ga., January 25. i860, viz: an 
exact transcript of my pencil copy written in bed, which I 
retained. That I requested you not to include this correspon- 
dence nor my diary written when a prisoner in Fort Warren, 
Boston Harbor, in 1865, in your "Life Letters and Speeches" or 
Biography of myself, because I intended to treat the matter fully 
and fairly as I did in "The War Between the States." Also that 
I did authorize the use in both books of the Springfield, Ills., 
A. L. of November 30, i860, of my copy reply of Ga. 14 Dec'r 
i860, of his rejoinder of Dec'r 22, i860, and also of my longer 
sur-rejoinder of which you made printed and not fac simili copy. 
The originals are yours to use as thought best. 

Faithfully yours, 
Alexander H. Stephens. 

(Only the signature is in Mr. Stephens' handwriting.) 



All of the foregoing letters were in December 1859 and January 
i860. 

After Mr. Lincoln's election, the following correspondence 
with Mr. Stephens was had. The originals of these letters are in 
my collection and were reproduced in fac-simile in Mr. Cleveland's 
"Alexander H. Stephens in Public and Private with Letters and 
Speeches" as mentioned in Mr. Stephens' certification above. 

16 



Springfield, Ills., Nov. 30, i860. 
Hon. A. H. Stephens 
My dear Sir. 
I have read, in the newspapers, your speech recently delivered 
(I think) before the Georgia Legislature or its assembled mem- 
bers. If you have revised it, as is probable, I shall be much 
obliged if you will send me a copy. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln." 



17 



Original draft (copy of it sent) 

Crawfordville, Ga., 14 December, i860. 
"My Dear Sir 

Your short and polite note of the 30th ulto asking for a revised 
copy of the speech to which you refer etc. was not received until 
last night. The newspaper report of the speech has never been 
revised by me. The notes of the reporter were submitted to me 
and corrected to some extent before being published but not so 
thoroughly as I would have wished. The report was substantially 
correct. If I had had any idea that it would have been so 
extensively circulated as it has been and been published in so 
many papers throughout the country as it has been I should have 
prepared a copy for the press in the first instance. But I had no 
such thought and therefore let the report go as it did. There are 
several verbal inaccuracies in it but the main points appear 
sufficiently clear for all practical purposes. The country is 
certainly in great peril and no man ever had heavier or greater 
responsibilities resting upon him than you have in the present 
momentous crisis. 

Yours most Respectfully, 

Alexander H. Stephens." 
Hon. Abraham Lincoln, 
Springfield, 111. 



18 



For your own eye only 

Springfield, Ills., Dec. 22, i860. 

Hon. A. H. Stephens. 

My dear Sir 

Your obliging answer to my short note is just received and for 
which please accept my thanks. I fully appreciate the present 
peril the country is in, and the weight of responsibility on me. 
Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republi- 
can administration would, directly, or indirectly, interfere with 
their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish 
to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, 
that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no 
more danger in this respect, than it was in the days of Washing- 
ton. I suppose, however, this does not meet the case. You 
think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think 
it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. 
It certainly is the only substantial difference between us. 

Yours very truly 

A. Lincoln. 



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